Certified Tutors From Colby Community College

Today we tackled math - we went over the concepts of pyramids, cones, and spheres; and revisited the concepts of surface area and volumes. I also reviewed with the student the math assignment from school. While we tackled math, we also discussed what we would do tomorrow, in terms of English. I left her with some homework and reiterated my advice to her on how to do better in math.

Lesson 9.6 : Solve quadratic equations by factoring when leading coefficient is 1. I taught him the diamond method to make procedural steps easy. He grasped it pretty good. Lesson 9.7 : Solve one step equations using square root. He did really great in this lesson and understands that negative numbers do not have real square-roots. Lesson 9.8 : Solve quadratic equations by completing squares. The student is going to have quiz on this topics tomorrow in the class. We will have our next tutoring session after Spring break.

Today we went over word problems in math, particularly the ones concerning interest. Setting up a table was a big help for the student to visualize the math. In chemistry, we went over radioactive processes. Overall he is doing great.

The student's class had started the lesson on Ratios and Proportions in school, so after taking a few minutes to ensure she was keeping up her developing organizational skills, we studied the definitions of ratio, rate, and proportion. We discussed and rephrased the terminology when necessary to help her understand it. Then we analyzed examples of each to better understand the differences.

The student did well tonight! She has a midterm tomorrow, and we reviewed the concepts and she completed the review sheet. She understands the concepts, exponential growth, rationals, etc. When we worked through the word problems, she understood what to put where in the formula. All we had to do then is plug the numbers into the calculator! With rationals and solving logarithms, she understands the concept but doesn't always know what to do with the problems. We practiced those problems and lastly reviewed rationals, which she's getting better at! I left with her some extra notes and practice. I think she'll do well if she just works through the word problems and sticks to the formulas! She felt better about the material at the end of the session, and I think she's ready! :)

The student and I started our session by reviewing vowel sounds and letter combinations that we discussed last week. She remembered a lot of what we discussed- I was impressed! Today we focused a lot on words that have "ow" such as show, snow, blow, etc. Because she has trouble combining letter sounds, I found this to be particularly helpful for her and noticed her progress throughout the session.